<!-- title: "External build-system" date: 2020-03-31 custom_edit_url: https://github.com/netdata/netdata/edit/master/build_external/README.md --> # External build-system This wraps the build-system in Docker so that the host system and the target system are decoupled. This allows: - Cross-compilation (e.g. linux development from macOS) - Cross-distro (e.g. using CentOS user-land while developing on Debian) - Multi-host scenarios (e.g. parent-child configurations) - Bleeding-edge scenarios (e.g. using the ACLK (**currently for internal-use only**)) The advantage of these scenarios is that they allow **reproducible** builds and testing for developers. This is the first iteration of the build-system to allow the team to use it and get used to it. For configurations that involve building and running the agent alone, we still use `docker-compose` for consistency with more complex configurations. The more complex configurations allow the agent to be run in conjunction with parts of the cloud infrastructure (these parts of the code are openpgp: Add 1pa3pc test vector from dkgpg.